Saturday, April 7, 2012

Learning At It’s Best

Selena was up yesterday morning quite early. She was being quiet so I lingered on the couch half awake and half asleep. Finally I made my way off the couch to find Selena sitting at the table practicing her numbers. We haven’t worked much on writing numbers, since Selena just didn’t seem that interested. Here she sat not being prompted, not being asked, with no assistance from me, writing her numbers.

One of the questions I read over and over again has to do with why isn’t my child writing, why isn’t my child reading? I have commented many times that I feel a child will only do what he/she is ready to do. I have known for some time that Selena was getting ready to break into the writing and learning to write her numbers, while we played around a bit with them, I never pushed the issue. She has always had the tools she has needed from paper, pencils, dry erase, and pens just readily available when ever she wants to use them. The fact that she has sat down and done this on her own, will only boost her self confidence in herself. I can now see real math in our near future.

I love discovering self directed learning in our home. While I love to teach Selena and work with her, nothing seems to make me more proud then when she discovers her own talents and abilities on her own. It is these moments when I know the material will stick a life time.

You are doing right by her. I've seen some of K's friends who lost confidence once they entered Kindergarten where they are expected to read and write. Some parents provide outside tutoring like Sylan or Kumon but they are not progressing as fast as the parents would like. It's sad to see all this because if they were given time to figure it out, they would learn better and also have the confidence to boot!